The orchid garden

Title page of issue 20 in the year 1920, Max Leidlein

The orchid garden , with the sub-title Fantastic Leaves , was a German-language magazine devoted to fantasy and eroticism in literature and the visual arts . It was published between January 1919 and November 1921 by Dreiländerverlag in Munich , in 51 issues and 54 issues, in the first year with 18 issues, in the second with 24 and in the third with 12 issues. Its editor was the Austrian writer Karl Hans Strobl , its editor the Austro-German writer and painter Alfons von Czibulka , who founded the Dreiländerverlag together with the German publisher and alpine writer Walter Schmidkunz on February 1, 1919.

It is believed that The Orchid Garden was the oldest fantasy magazine in the world before the pulp magazine Weird Tales , which appeared in March 1923 .

history

A sample number of the magazine with text excerpts appeared as early as 1918, in which the purpose of the publication was outlined as follows:

“ Today, when it is undeniably clear that all life is fantastic, all art is moving in a straight line towards the absolutely fantastic. On the path that it has taken since its very beginnings, because all art is fantastic because it is boundless and incomprehensible. And one thing is incomprehensible, boundless and fantastic. (...) All the fantastic, the grotesque and artistic morality, horror, tension, spooky and adventure will give each other (...) an amazing rendezvous in the orchid garden. "

Illustration, Paul Neu , 1920

The magazine, which appeared in January 1919, corresponded to this announcement by printing fantastic literature , partly also by bundling articles on special topics such as “Fashions and Masks”, “Ghost Ball ” , “ Cuckolders ” and “Fairy Tales”. In addition to original articles by German-speaking authors, the magazine published translations of contemporary French, English and Russian-speaking authors from January 1919, as well as reprints of older literary texts. In addition, erotic literature was part of the repertoire. Fantastic and erotic art also shaped the layout of the magazine. The colored front pages with drawn letters from the magazine title and the black and white magazine pages were designed with illustrations by German graphic artists and draftsmen who depicted fantastic, sometimes erotic figures and bizarre scenes. There were also supplements with reproductions by visual artists. From 1920 there was also a “luxury edition B” signed by the publisher with original graphics.

The publisher advertised the magazine, which is intended for a circulation of 30,000 copies, with the following words:

“ The orchid garden is with its beautiful - sometimes gruesome, sometimes satirical and amusing graphic decoration, with its colorful, gripping cover that changes with each issue and the rich text contributions (twenty-four pages) a very unique sheet that is extremely enjoyable. In the permanent supplement 'Das Treibhaus', Dr. Max Kemmerich from his curious and strange treasures. "

Under the title “Electro Demons”, issue 23 was dedicated as a special edition to the “world reputation of Germany's electrotechnical industry” and the “attempt to do artistically justice to the immeasurable achievement of German technical thinking.” The publisher and editors went on to explain: “Because this one still has The field of technology has not found the herald of its symbolic and expressive world of forms. The movement of the machines still speaks alone and calls for the interpreter in rhythm and epic. "

Soon a content-related and economic "emaciation" as well as a conflict with applicable criminal law provisions against the "dissemination of lewd writings" became noticeable: From the second year onwards the booklets became thinner, in the third year there was a clear decline due to double booklets. Numbers 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 of the year 1920 were added, and numbers 3 and 5 from the year 1921 were added to the "List of those who were confiscated and made unusable on the basis of Section 184 of the Reich Criminal Code, as well as those as indecent suspicious writings (2nd edition Berlin 1926) ”added.

Strobl, Gustav Meyrink and Leo Perutz did not honor their promise to create a series of fantastic, occult or mystical stories and novels from earlier and more recent times parallel to the magazine .

Writers and illustrators

Title page by Karl Ritter , 1920

Title page by Otto Muck , 1920

The following were represented as authors / artists through articles in the magazine:

writer

Guillaume Apollinaire Apuleius Matteo Bandello Felix Braun Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov Karel Čapek Josef Čapek Grazia Deledda Charles Dickens Arthur Conan Doyle Kasimir Edschmid Amelia Edwards Karl zu Eulenburg Egid Filek von Wittinghausen Alexander Moritz Frey Théophile Gautier Franz Karl Ginzkey Oskar Maria Graf Nathaniel Hawthorne Frank Heller ETA Hoffmann Victor Hugo Washington Irving

Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam Rudyard Kipling Klabund Emil Lucka Guy de Maupassant Kurt Moreck Charles Nodier Otto Pick Ernst Penzoldt Leo Perutz Edgar Allan Poe Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin Hans Reiser Leopold Wolfgang Rochowanski Hermann Harry Schmitz Franz Schoenberner Fyodor Sologub Karl Hans Strobl Hellmuth Unger Paul Verlaine Voltaire HG Wells Otto Zoff

Illustrators

Aubrey Beardsley Gustave Doré Erich Godal (Erich Goldbaum) Rolf von Hoerschelmann Tony Johannot Richard Klein Heinrich Kley Alfred Kubin Max Leidlein Otto Linnekogel Otto Muck

Paul New Otto Nückel Flora Palyi Elfriede Plaichinger-Coltelli Carl Rabus Karl Ritter Tom Seidmann-Freud Max Schenke Walter Trautschold Alfons Wölfle

literature

• Robert N. Bloch: The orchid garden. An annotated bibliography . Verlag Lindenstruth, Giessen 2011, ISBN 978-3-93427-383-2 ( review )
• Karl Klaus Walther: The Dreiländerverlag Munich (1919–1926) . In: Monika Estermann, Ursula Rautenberg (Hrsg.): Archive for the history of the book industry . Volume 64, Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24860-3 , p. 188

Web links

Commons : The Orchid Garden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Digitized from the years 1919 to 1921
• Orchideengarten, Der , entry February 8, 2013. In: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
• ZDB ID 536317-2
• Illustrations from Der Orchideengarten, the World's First Fantasy Magazine , website in the portal 50watts.com
• The orchid garden , website on the tumblr.com portal

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Ashley: The Time Machines. The Story of the Science Fiction Pulp Magazines from the beginning to 1950 . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2000, ISBN 0-85323-855-3 , p. 15 f. ( Google Books )
2. ↑ Robert N. Bloch: The orchid garden. An annotated bibliography . Publishing house Lindenstruth, Giessen 2011
3. ^ Thomas Dietzel (Ed.): German literary journals 1880–1945 . KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10645-9 , p. 954 ( Google Books )
4. ^ Karl Klaus Walther: The Dreiländerverlag Munich (1919–1926) . In: Monika Estermann, Ursula Rautenberg (Hrsg.): Archive for the history of the book industry . Volume 64, Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24860-3 , p. 188 ( Google Books )
5. ↑ Max Kemmerich (1876–1932) was a cultural historian with mystical - parapsychological inclinations and, as an occultist, a supporter of the prophecies of Nostradamus .
6. ^ Karl Klaus Walther, p. 188
7. ^ Karl Klaus Walther, p. 188
8. ^ Adolf Sennewald: German book illustrators in the first third of the 20th century. Materials for bibliophiles . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04228-1 , p. 59 ( Google Books )